Matt Reviews: The Shape of Water

WARNING: SPOILERS

The Oscars have come and gone, and my man Gary Oldman finally went home with a little golden man! The Shape of Water also went home with the Best Picture award, and seeing as how (of this writing) it’s the only movie on that ballot that I’ve seen, I decided to finally put my thoughts out there on it.

In 1962, a mute woman named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works as a cleaning lady at a government laboratory. There, she discovers a mysterious fish-man (Doug Jones) with whom she develops a bond. While Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) plans to exploit the creature for the benefit of the U.S. government, Elisa enacts a plan to free the creature, helped by her gay neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), her co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer), and a Soviet spy with a heart of gold (Michael Stuhlbarg).

The movie is basically Beauty and the Beast meets E.T., and it relishes in the fact that its setting is the Cold War of the 1960’s. It has all of the trimmings of a sci-fi B-movie from that era: a creepy monster, shady government experiments, Russian spies, etc. However, with this setting, it allows the movie to create characters that are dynamic and sympathetic because of how their differences make them outcasts in society.

Aside from being mute, Elisa is also Hispanic. Giles is gay. Zelda is a working-class black woman. The fish-man is, of course, not even human. Dimitri, the Russian spy, is an outcast on two fronts. He’s a Soviet masquerading as an American to gain our secrets, but he has such a strong moral center that he ends up disobeying the orders of his handlers in order to help Elisa free the creature, thus making him an outcast from his own motherland as well. Dimitri wound up being a particularly interesting character because of this. Much like how the fish-man wound up not being a dangerous monster (a trope that, admittedly, had been done many, many times before), the Soviet spy turning into one of the good guys was another twist on the Cold War B-movie environment of the movie.

Peekaboo.

Contrasting the outcast nature of the main cast is Michael Shannon as the bad guy Colonel Strickland. Strickland very much fits into the “norm” of 1960’s culture: a straight white man with a wife and two kids working for the betterment of his country. However, his sexism and bigotry are on full display here, showing just the kind of toxic behavior that this time period idolized. And as it is in movies like this, the human bad guy winds up being a thousand times more monstrous than the actual “monster” in the film.

When I saw Baby Driver, I thought one of the best things about the movie was how Baby and his deaf foster dad communicated entirely in sign language. It’s a form of communication you don’t see too often in movies, and I wished that film had more of that in there. This movie takes that concept and ups it by having the main character be the one using sign language this time. And with the creature’s inability to speak English, that means that our two leads communicate exclusively in sign language. Not only does this allow Sally Hawkins to show off the range of her physical acting by taking away her ability to speak, but it also creates a unique type of romance for the movie – one where the two of them never speak out loud to one another.

There are not a lot of issues I have with this movie, and what I do have problems with are not major enough to affect my enjoyment of the overall film. One such issue is the aforementioned Michael Shannon as Colonel Strickland. While the rest of the cast is quite three-dimensional characters that take the roles normally portrayed in sci-fi B-movies to new, interesting heights, Strickland felt more one-note. In a movie with characters with believable and sympathetic backstories, Strickland was more of a cartoon character. He was the big bad government man with sexist remarks that sometimes strayed a little too far into the “over the top” territory, and that was about it for his character. He felt like he would fit more at home in the B-movies this film was paying homage to, and maybe that’s the point of his characterization. Regardless, his performance and character in this movie was a bit distracting compared to how much effort went into the rest of the cast.

The other point of contrition I’ll mention is the pretty-much-out-of-nowhere musical number sung by Elisa. That’s right, our MUTE main character has a musical number. Granted, it’s a dream sequence meant to showcase Elisa’s love for the creature, and like the musical number in season 2 of Agent Carter, the time period kind of justifies the presence of a big band show stopping number. What I thought was happening in the movie is that somehow her having sex with the creature resulting in his healing powers fixing her voice, and then she’d spend the rest of the movie speaking normally. Fortunately, that was not the case, but the musical number still came quite out of the blue and is never brought up again. Maybe they just needed an excuse to show off Sally Hawkins’ singing abilities?

Tale as old as slime...

Also, while I’m on this subject, how exactly does the creature have these healing abilities? I’m not expecting a full explanation in this movie, since the creature is interesting because we don’t know that much about him, but what kind of scientific explanation is there for how an amphibious fish-man can somehow heal peoples’ wounds just by touching them? And I really hope that the ending – in which the creature turns Elisa’s neck scars into gills to save her life – was some sort of weird dream fantasy or Giles’ own interpretation of what happened after the creature disappeared with Elisa’s body. Because if that really happened, that makes the creatures abilities make even less sense.

Overall, I think the success and appeal of The Shape of Water can be attributed to its simplicity. I’ve watched other “Oscar Bait” movies in the past, and they were either so slow that they bored me to tears, or so complex that I had a hard time following them. The Shape of Water has neither of these problems. Like I said before, it’s a Beauty and the Beast love story mixed with the “hiding a fantastical creature from the government” plot of E.T. Both of these are incredibly familiar plot devices to people, so it makes it easier to connect with a wide range of audiences.

It’s got a little something for everyone. Fans of sci-fi, romance, spy thrillers, B-movies, and period pieces will all get something out of The Shape of Water. It’s got well-defined and likeable characters, with fantastic performances being put out by all of them. Special mention once again goes to Sally Hawkins – acting the entire movie mute save for the musical number – and Doug Jones, who shows a wide range of emotions while not even resembling a human. And who would have thought that a romance between an inhuman fish-man and a human woman could work so well?

The fact that the movie is now the winner of a Best Picture award – as well as Best Director – just shows the importance of passion in movies. Director Guillermo del Toro is always someone whose passion I always feel in every single movie he makes. He liked the Hellboy comics, so he made two Hellboy movies. He liked kaiju movies and anime, so he made Pacific Rim. He wanted the Creature from the Black Lagoon to wind up with the girl at the end, so he made The Shape of Water to make his fanfiction come true. I don’t think he ever sets out to specific make movies to win Oscars like some directors do. He makes movies because he loves making movies, and it’s this passion for what he does that winds up making them wonderful flicks every time.

This movie’s success is a testament that with the right passion, any fanboy that makes his way into Hollywood can achieve greatness.

Final verdict: 9/10